Hans-Hermann Hoppe (HansHoppe.com)
is an Austrian school economist and libertarian / anarcho-capitalist philosopher,
a Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Senior
Fellow with the Ludwig von
Mises Institute, and the Editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies.
QL's deputy editor Marc Grunert asked his opinion on issues such as
war, terrorism, the emergence of a world state, and how to promote freedom.
For a review of H.-H. H.'s latest book, see le QL, no
96.

Québécois
Libre:What
is your position on the "war on terror" led by the US government? Do you
think an attack on Iraq is justified?

Hans-Hermann
Hoppe:For
one, it is important to note that the U.S. government is not exactly innocent
in all of this. Through its interventionist foreign policy, and in particular
its almost blind support given to the state of Israel, the U.S. can be
said to have provoked terrorist acts. If you meddle in foreign affairs,
you should not be surprised if besides some friends you will also make
plenty of enemies. In
addition, it is the U.S. government, by having disarmed pilots and passengers,
which made it first possible that people armed with box cutters could inflict
the damage they did. Moreover, the non-discriminatory – affirmative action
– immigration policy of the U.S. and other Western countries during the
last few decades has made it possible that people alien or even hostile
to Western values can easily come and infiltrate the Western world. Iraq
(and Saddam Hussein) is no worse and no greater danger than many, many
other places. It has apparently committed no foreign aggression and its
alleged Al Qaeda connection is mere say-so. A war against Iraq would thus
be a purely preemptive strike and hence set an extremely dangerous precedent.
In light of this, it is difficult to dismiss the suspicion that in both
the war against the Taliban and against Saddam Hussein matters of pipeline
and oil concessions (rather than humanitarian concerns) actually play(ed)
a dominant role.Indeed,
one may even ask if it is not the U.S. (and Bush) that constitutes the
greatest danger to world peace. The U.S. commands more weapons of mass
destruction than anyone else, they have not hesitated to gas their own
population (in Waco), they engage in economic embargoes (against Cuba as
well as Iraq) which harm especially the civilian population and which,
because of this, have been traditionally considered particularly shameful
forms of war, and spurred on by the neoconservatives and evangelic fundamentalist
the U.S. is driven by an almost religious – and self-righteous – zeal to
make the old Wilsonian dream come true and make the world safe for democracy.

QL:Is
there an efficient means to fight terrorism and preserve individual rights
at the same time?H.-H.
H.:What
we see in the U.S. today is something very familiar. Governments love crises
– indeed, they frequently cause or contribute to them – in order to increase
their own power. Just witness the government takeover of airport security,
the establishment of an office for homeland security (isn't that the task
of the Department of Defense? and if not, wouldn't it be more appropriate
to call the department of defense the Department of War?), and the current
plan of establishing an almost complete electronic surveillance system
vis-a-vis its own citizens. In
order to combat terrorism it is necessary to engage in a non-interventionist
foreign policy, to have a heavily armed civilian population – more guns,
less crime – and to treat terrorism for what it is: not as a conventional
attack by the armed forces of another state but as essentially private
conspiracies and crimes which must be combatted accordingly by police action,
hired mercenaries, privateers, assassination commandoes, and headhunters.

QL:French
"classical liberals" oppose US libertarians and what they call their "pacifist
propaganda." Do you consider yourself a "pacifist?" H.-H.
H.:In
general (me included), libertarians are not pacifists. Quite to the contrary,
they believe in the right to self-defense. However, they are opposed to
the initiation of force, i.e., aggression. There exist "just" wars such
as, for instance, the U.S. war of independence and the Southern war of
independence. In order to be just, however, a war must be defensive, and
a clear distinction between combatants and non-combatants must be made.

QL:Does
the epistemological revolution you carried out, that is, the justification
a priori of the non-aggression principle, put the contemporary classical
liberals in an intellectually unsustainable position?H.-H.
H.:Yes,
in my book Democracy: the God That Failed I have shown that classical
liberalism is an inconsistent and hence untenable position. Once you admit
the necessity of a state – a territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making
equipped with the right to tax – there is no way that you can limit the
power of the state to that of a minimal state. Assuming only self-interest
on the part of the government rulers, every minimal state has a tendency
to become a maximum state, notwithstanding constitutional provisions to
the contrary. After all, the constitution must be interpreted, and it is
interpreted by supreme courts, i.e., parts of the very government in question,
whose interest is to enlarge state power (and hence their own power as
well).

« Libertarians must develop a clear class consciousness, not in the
Marxian sense, but in the sense of recognizing that there exists a clear
distinction between taxpayers (the exploited) and tax consumers (the exploiters).
»

In
addition, once it is admitted that states (and taxes) are necessary to
provide for internal (domestic) peace and security it must be further accepted
that only a single world state is capable of producing all-around (international)
peace and security. And yet a world state would be the greatest threat
to human liberty, because there exists no exit option anymore. That is,
people can no longer vote with their feet against their government, because
wherever they go, the same tax and regulation structure applies.

QL:Is
there really a "war of civilization" between the Western world and the
Islamic world, as many French classical liberals vehemently contend? Do
you believe predominantly Muslim societies will always remain antagonistic
to market economics and individual rights?H.-H.
H.:If
you want the Western "goodies" and aspire to Western living standards,
which I have the impression the overwhelming majority of Muslims wants,
you will have to adopt a capitalist system based on private property rights,
market economics, and individual rights. Religious fundamentalism, whether
of the Muslim, Jewish or Christian variety, is hard or impossible to reconcile
with capitalism. Historically,
the Muslims had less time to rid themselves of fundamentalist strands than
Christians, for instance. However, I see no fundamental reason
why Islam should be incapable of the same type of internal doctrinal cleansing.
And I am confident that unrestricted free trade with the Muslim world is
the most efficient way to weaken and ultimately erode the hold that religious
fundamentalism still has in some parts of the world.

QL:Political
globalism tends towards the emergence of a world state. Is this phenomenon
reversible? How should we oppose it?H.-H.
H.:Interstate
competition has indeed the tendency of leading ultimately to the formation
of a world state. This phenomenon is reversible, however. For one, people
should be reminded that it was precisely the near anarchistic structure
of Europe as compared to China, for instance, that explains the rise of
capitalism, i.e., the so-called European economic miracle: small states,
in direct competition with others, must be moderate to their own population
in order not to lose their most productive citizens. For
instance, small states must engage in free trade rather than protectionism.
All government interference with foreign trade forcibly limits the range
of mutually beneficial inter territorial exchanges and thus leads to relative
impoverishment at home as well as abroad. But the smaller a country, the
more dramatic this effect will be. A country the size of the U.S. might
attain comparatively high standards of living even if it renounced all
foreign trade. In contrast, if a territory the size of a city or village
engaged in protectionism, this would likely spell disaster or even death. In
order to reverse the trend toward centralization and ultimately the creation
of a world government, it is crucial that an alternative vision be promoted
and popularized in public opinion. We must promote the idea of secession.
Or more specifically, we must promote the idea of a world composed of tens
of thousands of distinct districts, regions, and cantons, and hundred of
thousands of independent free cities such as the present day oddities of
Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Greatly
increased opportunities for economically motivated migration would thus
result, and the world would be one of small liberal governments economically
integrated through free trade and an international commodity money such
as gold.

QL:From
a strategic point of view, how should libertarians act in order to promote
freedom?H.-H.
H.:First
of all, they must develop a clear class consciousness, not in the Marxian
sense, but in the sense of recognizing that there exists a clear distinction
between taxpayers (the exploited) and tax consumers (the exploiters). Politicians
as agents of the state live parasitically off the labor of taxpayers. Accordingly,
instead of admiring them or seeking their association, politicians (and
the more so the higher their rank) should be treated with contempt and
as the butt of all jokes, as emperors without clothes. The political class
and their intellectual bodyguards, teachers and professors, must be delegitimized
as self-serving frauds, and democracy in particular must be attacked as
an immoral system in which the have-nots vote themselves the property of
the haves. Political activities, if they are to take place at all, should
be restricted to the local level and be motivated by decentralist or better
still secessionist objectives.